Hot Shrimp Salad and Buttery Roasted Cauliflower Soup

You guys get a two-for-one dealie again, since I’ve been kind of sickly and away. I missed you!

My digestion isn’t perfect yet, but it’s getting better. I’m currently watching Risky Business and Tom Cruise looks like such a BABY. How old was he when he did this movie? Hold on a second.

*googles*

He was 21! My god! He looks like he’s 16, and barely hit puberty, with his voice still being a pitch too high for a 21-year. Oh, Tom. So cute. I want to pitch your cheeks.

Now, on to some fooooooood.

I love leftovers. You can use them in a whole new fashion, and blow your tastebuds away. I had some leftover collard greens that I’d cooked in some wild boar lard (I still have it!), and just purchased some organic mixed salad greens. I also had some frozen cooked shrimp.

Oh my God, BALKI IS IN THIS MOVIE!?!?! Perfect Strangers was a major part of my childhood!

Sorry. Still watching Risky Business.

I like to change up my food sources, and to be honest, I’m not a shrimp kind of gal. In fact, I don’t eat a lot of seafood. But I’d like to change all that. So I bought a bag of frozen cooked shrimp from Metro, and had it in broth a few times. Yum! But this time, I needed something different. This was my breakfast.

Heat your frying pan to medium high and melt your butter. When sizzling, add your shrimp. Leave your shrimp to brown slightly, about 1 – 2 minutes. Add in your 3 tablespoons bone bone and cover. This keeps the shrimp cooking through, and the broth adds some nice steam to do so. Leave this for about another 2 – 3 minutes. Lift up your lid, and add your garlic. Ahhhh. Butter, garlic and shrimp! Your kitchen smells awesome now, doesn’t it? Stir to mingle, making sure not to burn your garlic. Add in your collard greens, and handful of mixed salad greens. Toss and stir for about 1 minute longer. Add in your red pepper flakes, and a dash of sea salt at the end.

You’re right. This really isn’t a salad. But the butter, and broth, and fresh greens at the end…shut up. It’s a salad. Deal. Now, eat it!

Ok, now that you’re done stuffing your face on Hot Shrimp Salad, on to some creamy, buttery cauliflower soup.

One day, I was torturing myself looking at amazing, gluten-free sweets made by Elana at Elana’s Pantry. She is pretty well the gluten-free Goddess on the interwebs. I’m not crazy about her use of almond flour in baking (holy oxidized omega-6 fatty acids, Batman), and agave nectar (highly processed, fructose BOMB to your liver), however…her creativity is astounding. I <3 you Elana! When my candida is fully destroyed, I will be making your unreal Coconut Key Lime Cupcakes. Oh my god. OH. MY. GOD.

Elana had a recipe for roasted cauliflower soup. I filed it somewhere deep in the recipe rolodex of my brain for later. A few days ago, while making some other dinner type of food, I roughly cut up a whole head of cauliflower, and chucked it in the oven at 425 degrees, slathered in olive oil and sea salt. I cooked it for about 25 minutes until golden brown.

I left it out overnight to cool. This was a bad idea. The cats got hungry and went after it. Bastard cats. Harry and Zoe are beautiful, special and loving. But sometimes…they are EVIL! I love them still. It made me laugh the next morning to find wee little pieces of golden roasted cauliflower half-eaten on the floor.

“MAMA! THIS AIN’T PROTEIN!!!!!!”

I should also note here that my cats love bone broth added to their soft food. Licking their chops afterwards something fierce. Harry also loves bulletproof tea. His pupils become huge when I sit down on the couch with a beer stein (yes, I use a beer stein for my bulletproof tea) full of tea. He’s all like “OMG MAMA WUT IS DAT?!” and his head kind of starts to bob towards me, his noise twitching and sniffing. I dip my finger into coconut oil and butter fat at the top, and he goes to town. What a pig.

Melt your butter in a medium sized pot over medium high heat. Add in your onions. Add a pinch of sea salt. Slowly increase the heat to really brown and beautifully caramelize the onions. Keep stirring furiously. Don’t worry about the brown bits forming on the bottom of the pan. We’ll deal with that shortly. Keep browning the onions for about 4 – 5 minutes. Add in a little bit of bone broth to the pot. Scrape the brown bits off the bottom of the pot, incorporating their browned goodness. Add cauliflower and garlic. Keep stirring. Add a dash of seal salt, your rosemary and white pepper. Turn the heat down to medium high at this point.

Carefully add your bone broth, bone marrow (did you find some in your crock pot too?!), 1 cup of water to the mix. Simmer for about 5 minutes. You should have a gorgeous, deep golden pot of luscious soup. But! We’re not done yet!
Add your half cup of coconut milk. I promise, your soup won’t taste like coconut. But it will be creamy!

You have a stick blender by now right? Good. If not, very, very carefully add this pot full of WIN to a food processor or blender, and blend until smooth. Using your stick blender, blitz and puree until smooth. Now, the most important part:

QUALITY CONTROL!

Have a taste. Oh man, that’s AMAZING! Does it need a wee bit more salt, more white pepper? Stir some in at the end.

Soup’s up! Toss in some of those cubed pieces of leftover beef for a seriously delicious meal.

YUM.

So, Joel/Tom Cruise gets in trouble for cracking his Mama’s artsy fartsy glass egg. After all that! Risky Business is good times :D